In response to reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) targeting international students on college campuses, George Mason University (GMU) faculty are calling on the school to step up its protection of students, teachers and staff.
The George Mason University chapter of the American Association of University Presidents (GMU-AAUP) delivered a resolution signed by 228 members of the school community to the university’s administration on March 31.
“[The resolution calls] for President Gregory Washington to take immediate actions to keep students, staff, and faculty safe from immigration enforcement threats,” an email from Bethany Letiecq, president of GMU-AAUP, said yesterday. “As of today, we have not received any response from the administration.”
GMU said in an email to FFXnow that it had nothing to add beyond a statement from school leaders seeking to address immigration concerns in January.
That message, from James Antony, provost and executive vice president, and Rose Pascarell, vice president for university life, said ICE’s priority was locating and arresting “almost a million violent criminal offenders, not undocumented students and staff.”
Under the Trump administration, however, ICE has detained not only undocumented students, but also lawfully admitted international students.
Some students, including Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, appear to have been targeted after they advocated for their schools to divest from Israel over its war in Gaza — which some human rights groups have labeled genocide — following an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the militant group Hamas.
According to an analysis by Inside Higher Ed, approximately 147 international students across 48 institutions have seen their visas revoked since April 3. Universities have reported receiving no notice of their students’ status changes, learning about them only after checking a federal database.
The GMU-AAUP resolution calls on GMU to “publicly and unequivocally clarify its position on cooperating with federal and state immigration enforcement authorities, particularly in response to Executive Order 47 and future directives that threaten undocumented members of the university community.”
The resolution also urges the university to explicitly prohibit its police department from assisting, facilitating or otherwise cooperating with ICE or any other federal agencies seeking to detain or deport students, faculty and staff based solely on their citizenship status. It says the school should be formally designated as a “sanctuary campus.”
GMU-AAUP said the administration should also implement “Know Your Rights” training sessions and other workshops for students, faculty and staff.
“When international students, like Rümeysa Öztürk from Tufts University, are grabbed on the streets, detained, and threatened with deportation simply for publishing their views in student media, you know you are living in troubling times,” Letiecq said. “This petition sends a clear message that George Mason University must not be complicit in policies that instill fear and undermine our community’s ability to thrive.”
Letiecq told FFXnow that, to her knowledge, no GMU students have been detained by ICE, but anxiety is high among the university’s international student population.
“In meeting with international students, there is great fear of being targeted and concerns that the administration has yet to provide much guidance beyond their Jan 31, 2025 notice,” she said.
According to its website, GMU has students from 130 countries, and it’s the seventh most ethnically diverse public university in the U.S. As of the 2023-2024 academic year, it had more than 6,100 international students, including those enrolled at its campus in Korea.
GMU’s Board of Visitors recently approved a resolution aimed at combatting antisemitism despite concerns from opponents who fear it could be used to restrict free speech, particularly criticism of Israel, on the public school’s campuses.
